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Advanced IGvE Tactica
This matchup is one of the more complex ones for the Imperial Guard. While against the Space Marines the humans can win via a war of attrition, the Eldar have unmatched damage potential when fighting on their own terms. Tier 1 Units The early game is about how the Imperial Guard deal with the oppressive mobility and aggression of the Eldar. Guardians vs Guardsmen, raw DPS comparison * Guardians deal 34.3% more DPS at ranged for cost to Guardsmen. * Guardsmen have 9.35% more HP for cost than Guardians. * Guardsmen have 3x more DPS/cost in melee than Guardians. Guardians vs Guardsmen, after bonuses IG auras and squad leaders help them narrow the gap with Guardians. * Each Commissar increases guardsmen DPS by 5%. * Each Psyker reduces ranged damage received by 5%. * Each priest increases health regen by 1/second. * Guard sergeant increases the squad's DPS by 10%. Guardians vs Kasrkin Guardsmen are strictly more efficient than Kasrkin. You're paying for the: * Armour type. * Abilities. ** Unmatched movement speed for a Guard infantry, upon reaching Tier 2 with Double Time. ** Infiltration. Shooting while invisible with plasma guns is damn scary. ** Two grenades. Disruption without the need for special weapons. ** Anti-Tank capability. Meltaguns crack hard nuts. This is intended. The rank-and-file guardsmen are the mainstay of the Imperial Guard. Kasrkin are there for special circumstances. Kasrkin cannot be attached by mini-heroes, i.e. the Commissar, Priest or Psyker. Kasrkin have poor HP for cost. To be HP efficient depends entirely on receiving damage from an enemy that would otherwise slaughter guardsmen. This includes Warpspiders. Guardsmen are 30% more HP efficient than Kasrkin, approx. Therefore the enemy must be using a hard counter weapon against guardsmen which deals at least 30% more DPS to guardsman than kasrkin. Eldar Guardians deal 40% less damage to Kasrkin compared to Guardsmen. This makes Kasrkin still worthwhile. However, Kasrkin has a power cost, and therefore will not win out in a war of attrition against Eldar Guardians. Unupgraded Kasrkin have the same DPS efficiency profile as Tactical Space Marines. Kasrkin are 72% more efficient at destroying light buildings in melee compared to Guardsmen: * Kasrkin do 50% more damage to light buildings in melee than in ranged. * Guardsmen do less damage to light buildings in melee than in ranged. Warpspiders Warpspiders absolutely murder Guardsmen at ranged. Their melee DPS, however, is terrible. The Eldar can counter pesky guardsmen who tie up the Warpspider squad in melee by purchasing an Exarch squad leader. This squad leader deals 7-8x more raw DPS in melee than the troops. It may still be better to get into melee, just don't expect to win outright. When an Exarch leads the squad: * Against a small squad of Warpspiders, it may be better to engage them at range. * Against a reinforced squad of Warpspiders, it is definitely better to engage them in melee. Dealing with Heavy Cover Heavy cover reduces ranged damage received by 40%. This negates entirely the DPS advantage of Guardians (who are out of cover).. So then to dislodge IG from heavy cover, the Eldar must consider: * Banshees * Harlequin * Seer Council * Vehicles * Psychic Storm (if this spell is wasted, your life in cover will be easier) Light Cover Light cover reduces ranged damage taken by 20%. Considering for other bonuses that IG get, it can put the Guardsmen on par with Guardians (who are out of cover). Light cover does not provide enough incoming ranged damage resistance to make it effective against Guardians. Thus its purpose is to provide infiltration to Kasrkin. Light Cover is a desperate measure. Dealing with AOE Any kind of AOE, which Eldar have multiple sources of before Tier 2, makes the Psyker's Heisenberg Field less efficient than the Priest's Healing Aura. * Heisenberg Field reduces incoming ranged damage by 5%, stacking. * Priest's Healing Aura increases health regeneration by almost 1/second, stacking. Later on, Eldar's Eldritch Storm, Fire Prisms, Improved Psystorm, Harlequin, will all devastate Imperial Guard gunlines that are mispositioned. Dealing with AOE, Psystorm Psystorm deals 92 damage to each guardsmen model hit. As each guardsmen as 125 HP at Tier 1, the damage is devastating. Psystorm (like all spells) is unaffected by cover. The number of models hit depends on the formation the guardsmen are currently in, and whether they can escape before the duration of the spell ends. To mitigate this, consider Priests. Abilities - Tier 1.5 Kasrkin Kasrkin Flash Bang Grenades are immediately available at Tier 1.5. They do less damage than Tactical Frag Grenades, but have a higher radius (5 vs 4). Flash Bang's disruption is also slightly better. Kasrkin Infiltration is available at Tier 1.5. Eldar's two early game detectors are the Farseer and Rangers. * If the Eldar player went Guardians, then avoid the Farseer and plasma grenades (which Eldar players often get, if they're going Guardian mass) to maximise infiltration. Hero Wargear - Tier 1 Targeting Optics gives +10 sight (for a total of 35). This can help you disengage or engage fights before you're fully committed. Researches - Tier 1.5/2 HP Research Battle Armour (available Tier 1.5) increases: * Guardsmen HP by 40 (from 125 to 165). 32% increase. * Guardsmen sergeant HP by 100 (from 260 to 360). 38% increase. * Platoons HP by 70 (from 420 to 490). 16% increase. * Kasrkin's receive reduced incoming ranged damage received, by 11%. * Kasrkin HP by 40 (from 220 to 260). 18% increase. * Kasrkin sergeant HP by 100 (from 320 to 420). 31% increase. This provides more HP than the Eldar infantry HP research. * non-guardians receive 15% * guardians receive 30 HP (17.6% without Heavy Guardian Defenders) Eldar Guardians have a second HP infantry research in Tier 1, on top of what other Eldar infantry receive. This is the Heavy Guardian Defenders research. It provides: * plasma grenades * 40 HP (23.5% without Eldar infantry HP research, 20% with it. Total: 41.17%) DPS and Range Increase Research Satellite Targeting Resolution (available Tier 1.5) increases: * bunker DPS by 10% * guardsmen lasgun DPS by 15% * kasrkin hellgun DPS by 15% * guardsmen range by 2.5 (from 25 to 27.5) On many maps cover is placed such that: * The nearby objective enemy may or may not be within range of certain weapons, often flamers. * The cover may or may not allow your force to blockade the route. These map factors affect the value of Satellite Targeting Resolution. In cases it could allow your gun line to hold cover while providing more ranged DPS to the enemy. You could also think of increased range as increased damage, because when the imperial guard force gets larger the soldiers at the backlines struggle to get within range. This leads the formation to naturally try to create a single line, which is not efficient because they're spending time moving rather than firing. Satellite Targeting Resolution 2 (available Tier 2) increases: * bunker DPS by 10% * guardsmen lasgun DPS by 20% * kasrkin hellgun DPS by 20% * guardsmen range by another 2.5 (from 27.5 to 30) Morale Increasing Researches Death before Dishonour (available Tier 1 from the Infantry Command) and Will of the Emperor (available Tier 2) provide morale and HP to infantry. * They should be taken if the Eldar opt for Rangers. * They are less efficient than the other researches at providing HP. * Will of the Emperor, the 2nd research, provides access to guardsmen plasmaguns. * The value of this research increases if you opt to minimally use commissars. Special Weapon Research Weapon Specialization (available Tier 2) increases the DPS of special weapons significantly, and increases building gun damage. It happens to be one of the most expensive researches (150r/100p/30s). Abilities - Tier 2 Kasrkin Kasrkin Frag Grenades is available immediately at Tier 2. It does considerably more damage than normal frag grenades, and about 10-15% more disruption. Also, its radius is far reduced (1.5 vs 4). Kasrkin Sergeant Double Time is available at Tier 2, and increases the speed of the squad by 50% more 15 seconds, with a cooldown of 80 seconds. It is normally preferable to use Guardsmen to capture Critical Locations, as they're cheaper. Hoewever, Warpspider ambushes are devastating. If you want to take Critical Locations, use Kasrkin infiltration to capture the point safely. If necessary, use Double Time to escape. Command Squad Glorious Last Stand is Tier 2, from the command squad's commissar only, has no research requirement, stacks with commissar execute. Radius 10. Duration 10 seconds. * Increases melee damage received by 20%. * Increases ranged damage received by 20%. * Recovers morale damage. * Increases DPS 11% of all infantry, including heavy weapon teams. This should only be used when you are not taking damage in return. This is often in three different scenarios: * When the enemy are on the retreat. * When the enemy are melee focused. * When the enemy is heavily disrupted by your artillery or grenade launchers. * When a target of opportunity has presented itself, which lacks the means to fight back but could escape or be saved if the fight is prolonged. Commissar Commissar Execute is Tier 2, has no research requirement, stacks with commissar execute. You can execute Guardsmens or Ogryns. Radius 14. * Recovers morale damage. * Increases maximum morale by 60 for 12 seconds. * Increases ranged DPS by 20% for 10 seconds. Abilities - Tier 2.5 Strafing Run & Improved Strafing Run Requires mechanized command. Can be improved further to the Improved Strafing Run, once the Governor Raiment wargear is completed. This increases the duration by 33%. Therefore, if you're in the radius of the effect for the full duration you would then take 33% more damage. This can be highly valuable against the Eldar, as they have low mass and hp. Units - Tier 2.5 The Imperial Guard lack a unit with Daemon armour or Terminator armour - both of which the Firedragon's fusionguns are apt at destroying. That means the Firedragon only has two purposes: destruction of vehicles and of structures. This increases the opportunity cost for Eldar. If IG opt for frontlining with vehicles, then: * Always in-combat repair the vehicles with Techpriest Enginseers. * Consider getting Uncommon Valor (Tier 1.5) and Magnanimous Valor (Tier 2), increasing the Techpriest's repair rate by 7.5 each. From 30 to 37.5 to 45. Basilisk * The basilisk provides an oppressive level of disruption. As a first vehicle, it runs the risk of losing to Eldar vehicle mass. Vypers hard counter this. Firedragons also counter the basilisk, but there is more room for counter play there. * Brightlance platforms (which are highly efficient) lack the means to engage a basilisk. Eldar requires mobility to hunt the basilisk. Sentinel * The sentinel can decap strategic points, critical locations and relics. As a first vehicle, you can deny the Eldar's map control without losing an entire squad of guardsmen to an ambush. * The biggest threat to Sentinels are Firedragons. You can run away from Brightlance platforms. However, Sentinels would have trouble with Brightlance platforms within the Eldar gunline, in a fixed engagement. * Sentinels can be upgraded with Lascannons, which are anti-tank. It can be useful to deploy one or two sentinels for map control, which can provide emergency relief if the enemy deploy their own tanks. ** Sentinel Lascannon costs 200/225/45. Vyper with Missile Launcher costs 190/215/47. ** Vyper has 900 hitpoints. Sentinel has 1200 hitpoints. ** The Vyper with Missile Launcher is much more accurate when firing on the move. ** The Sentinel Lascannon deals a bit more DPS. Hellhound * The Hellhound applies a lot more pressure in-combat than Sentinels. ** Far more HP for cost than the Sentinel. Hellhound has 180/200/40 for 2k HP vs 140/150/30 for 1.2k HP. ** More armoured than the Sentinel (Medium Vehicle vs Light Vehicle). * Hellhound hard counters health regeneration. The inferno cannon reduces health regen to 10%. Abilities - Tier 3 Ogryn's Smack 'Em Down! is available at Tier 3. increases speed by 20%, gives 5 range melee charge, reduces accuracy by 50%, increases melee and ranged damage by 40%. This stacks with the Priest's Fanaticism. duration 20 seconds. Priest's Fanaticism is available at Tier 3. increases melee charge by 6. increases health regen by 10. duration 15 seconds. Counters Harlequin Inquisitor at Tier 3 with Symbol of Office: Ordo Malleus, gaining access to the Daemon Hammer and Enfeeble, can wreck the Harlequin and Avatar.